WarUlt
Warriors Ultimate, known in Japan as Unrivalled World: Ultimate Battle (Japanese: 無双世界: 究極戦い Musō sekai: Kyūkyoku-sen), is a crossover hack and slash video game developed by Koei Tecmo and Existence Software for the Nintendo Switch. Warriors Ultimate is a spin-off of Koei's Warriors franchise (consisting primarily of the Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, and Warriors Orochi series), and, similarly to the 2017 game Warriors All-Stars, the game features a cast of characters from a large variety of franchises. Unlike Warriors All-Stars, Warriors Ultimate is a collaboration between Koei Tecmo, Nintendo, Capcom, Sega, and Bandai Namco Entertainment, and includes a large variety of intellectual properties owned by those companies. The game has also been described as a "spiritual spin-off" of the Project X Zone series developed by Monolith Soft, as Nintendo, Capcom, Sega, and Bandai Namco all previously came together for the titles in that series. Warriors Ultimate was originally conceived as a sequel to the aforementioned Warriors All-Stars title, which saw a number of characters from various Koei Tecmo IPs come together as they are summoned to a strange new world, and break into factions led by one of the three royal siblings that rule over this land. Parts of this game's basic story concept are reimagined for Warriors Ultimate. Gameplay mechanics, however, are primarily inspired by the Warriors Orochi series instead. Additionally, the game's plot is loosely connected to the Warriors Orochi series', though characters that appear in those games have no memory of the events that occurred in those titles (much like in Warriors Orochi 4). Gameplay Unlike 2018's Dynasty Warriors 9, which took the Warriors series in a more open world-focused direction with an overhaul to the series' oft-criticized combat system, Warriors Ultimate returns to the Warriors franchise's more well-known linear-based scenarios. Combat is performed with a combination of button presses, utilizing "basic" and "charge" attacks each linked to a separate button - the button for basic attacks and the button for strong attacks. Attack combos can range from a simple C1 combo ( ) to a more complex C9 combo ( ). All Dynasty Warriors characters and some other characters have extendable combos (referred to as "Charge Movesets"), which can be performed by pressing the button again after the button at the end of a combo; those who can not extend their combos, such as the characters from the Samurai Warriors series, can instead perform Hyper Attacks, which are the inverse of the charge-ended combos (i.e. ) and see the warrior performing it dash forwards with each press of the button, and thus do not have default C1 attacks. In addition to basic and charge attacks, the player's character also has a Musou Gauge, which fills as the player defeats enemies, and the player can perform a strong Musou Attack by pressing the button. Finally, there also exists a Hyper Gauge, which, like the Musou Gauge, also fills when the player defeats enemies, albeit at a slower rate. Once the Hyper Gauge is filled completely, the player can hold both the and buttons to enter Hyper Mode, drastically increasing their damage output, attack speed, and general movement speed. While a character is in Hyper Mode, the player can also perform a Hyper Attack, which is the strongest move a warrior has at their disposal, by pressing the button at any time before the Hyper Gauge empties completely. In terms of defensive actions, holding the button will cause a character to block attacks - this lessens the damage they take from the front, though their guard can be broken by dealing enough consecutive damage or a particularly-strong attack. As in the Warriors Orochi series, the player can take a team of three warriors into battle and switch between them seamlessly while in combat. Unlike in the aforementioned title however, in which only the character the player is controlling appears on the map, all three of the player's party members appear in battle at once, and the player can issue orders to them on the pause screen - such orders include telling them to travel to specific areas of a map, or focus on protecting a certain ally or attacking a certain enemy. Players can switch between their three party members with the or buttons. A character's Musou Gauge will only fill should the player be controlling them. Returning from Warriors Orochi 4 is the Sacred Treasures gameplay mechanic. In Warriors Orochi 4, all characters had a Sacred Treasure associated with them, which grants them a single basic, charge, and unique Magic Attack that can be performed by holding down and pressing any of the , , or buttons respectively. In the aforementioned title, these Sacred Treasures granted the playable warriors the powers of gods or deities from a variety of different cultures' mythologies, and all characters who shared a Sacred Weapon also shared the same basic and charge Magic Attacks, with only the unique Magic Attack being, as its name states, unique to each warrior. In Warriors Ultimate this gameplay mechanic acts almost identically, though has been renamed to Traverse Armament as these "magical" weapons instead take the form of items from the series represented in the game. The use of Traverse Armaments is tied to the character's Musou Gauge, with basic Magic Attacks using up a minimal amount, Charge Attacks using up roughly a quarter of the Musou Gauge, and unique Magic Attacks utilizing one-half of the bar. Just as with the Musou Attacks, defeating enemies with Magic Attacks does not fill up the Musou Gauge. By holding the button and pressing , the player can summon a steed to ride around the battlefield, with this act not draining the Musou Gauge. Story Characters Just as in the Warriors Orochi series, all playable warriors are separated into one of three classes: Speed, Power, or Technique. These classes mean little in terms of the playable character's stats and play style, but do offer a small selection of differences. Speed characters enter their full-speed dash at a faster rate than other characters, can jump to cancel out of any action, and can perform a double jump; Power characters do not flinch from the attacks from basic enemies and deal more damage to an opponent's guard; and Technique characters can guard to cancel out of any action, and can perform a quick forwards dash attack upon knocking an enemy into the air. The player can collect Character Cards by defeating enemies or completing side missions that can power-up a character in certain ways with Skills and increase their basic attack power. Characters that previously appeared in a Warriors title reuse their moveset from the latest entry in which they are playable. Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors characters are based on their appearance in Warriors Orochi 4 (thus they are based on Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires and Samurai Warriors 4-II, respectively). Other returning characters are based on their appearances in Warriors All-Stars, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate, Hyrule Warriors Legends, or Fire Emblem Warriors; Takamaru is an exception to this as, while he did previously appear in the bonus Murasame Castle Mode of Samurai Warriors 3, he has had a brand new moveset created for his appearance in Warriors Ultimate. Additionally some characters have had adjustments to their movesets made to utilize the Hyper style of moveset. Traverse Armaments Scenario Maps Gallery ACL Warriors Ultimate logo.png|English logo ACL Ultimate Orochi.png|Kuzuryūshin Trivia * Despite Ayane debuting in the Dead or Alive series (and appears using her design from Dead or Alive 6), the development team decided to have Ayane represent the Ninja Gaiden series as her moveset is a replica of her's from that series of games. Additionally, Ayane was chosen to represent Ninja Gaiden as to not over-saturate the amount of Dead or Alive characters in the game. * As the Donkey Kong series of video games typically does not feature any spoken dialogue from the characters, this is the first video game since Donkey Kong 64, the only game in the series to do so, in which King K. Rool speaks an intelligible language. Jūrōta Kosugi, K. Rool's voice actor in Warriors Ultimate, has previously voiced the character in the Japanese dub of the Canadian/French Donkey Kong Country animated series. ** Coincidentally, Kosugi is also the voice actor for the Samurai Warriors character Nobunaga Oda and the Atelier character Sterkenburg Cranach, both of whom have made appearances in Warriors games previously. * Sophitia Alexandra is the only character not owned by Koei Tecmo who is classified as a "veteran" to the Warriors series and does not come from a series that has had a formal collaboration title with the Warriors franchise. This is because Sophitia appeared as a guest character in Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate.